Duluthians can use the web to fight crime

Caption: Chief Ramsay at a crime prevention meeting in March.
Photo by Naomi Yaeger-Bischoff.

Residents who want to help the police solve crimes and improve neighborhood safety have a new tool at their disposal: crimemapping.com. The website enables visitors to sign up for e-mail alerts regarding police calls and crimes in their neighborhoods.

“You can see what type of police activity has taken place in your neighborhood and potentially help us by being more aware of what is happening in your neighborhood,” says Duluth Police Chief Gordon Ramsay, who encouraged residents to sign up for crimemapping.com alerts at a recent community meeting. He explained that residents sometimes see criminal activity in their neighborhoods but don’t realize it. The alerts aim to jog residents’ memories, prompt them to call in with tips and make them more aware of the types of criminal activities that can go unnoticed day to day.

The police department’s goal is to get 1,000 residents to sign up at crimemapping.com by the end of the year. As of March, 13 Duluth residents had done so.
For more information about the service, or to sign up, residents can go to www.crimemapping.com or to the Duluth Police Department’s website.

Crime prevention: Building neighborhoods one cookie at a time

Following an old Minnesota tradition of greeting your neighbors with a gift of food, over 75 participants at the January City-Wide Crime Prevention meeting decided to step up to take home plates of home made cookies to “pass them on” and get to know their neighbors.
Volunteers started baking and donated 51 dozen homemade cookies (that’s 612 cookies!) The cookies were placed by the dozen on china and glass plates that were either donated, or purchased for under 50 cents each through the support of local business owner Barb Seaman of Seaman’s Variety in West Duluth.
The “Cookie Patrol” will continue throughout March and April with prizes awarded at the April meeting for the residents who meet the most new neighbors.
March’s City-Wide Crime Prevention meeting will be held on Thurs., March 26 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Holy Family Church.
For more information contact Debbie Isabell Nelson – NHS Neighborhood Coordinator at 727-8604 ext. 12.